Day 5 Jaisalmer

Jaisalmer is medieval city on the edge of the Thor desert, about 100 miles from the Pakistani border. When we got off the train, we were greeted by a row of festively adorned camels. First the bus took us to an artificial lake built in the 16th century to supply water to the town. Nice ornate archway entry built by prostitute led to the lake, but some would not go under it, so she added a temple on top. From there we bussed to the fort. This 800-year old fort is the only inhabited fort in India and one of very few in the world. It’s a very large complex built of sandstone on top of a hill. Very narrow cobblestone alleyways and several angled gates lead inside, but they are jammed with motorcycles, small 3 wheeled taxis, and pedestrians. We only visited two jain temples there. Then we walked back down to the town through insanely crowded streets, with people, motorbikes, cars and a multitude of cows obstructing traffic. It was a madhouse. The purpose was to see two havelis, a beautifully ornate mansions of local aristocrats. The stonework on these mansions is truly amazing. Unfortunately, we again wasted too much time by having an obligatory shopping stop at a place that makes ornate textiles. After a demonstration, a sales pitch… Since we were not interested, and we ran out of cash, we decided to go look for an ATM. A person took us to one a few blocks away, but it didn’t work. Someone pointed us to another one so we went, but this one didn’t work either so we decided to go back. At that point, we were on our own in a maze of little streets that looked alike, and we had no idea, which one to take. After a few turns we were lost. Luckily at some point we spotted a little taxi with 4 people from our group. They not only took us on, but also stopped at a working ATM. We made it to the bus just in time. After lunch we took a 30 minute bus ride to the desert. Many, many camels. Two persons per camel and we had a 30 minute camel ride. After changing in the train we went to a dinner at swanky Palace hotel. Dinner outside in garden but food was not as good as food on the train.